By Bob Pockrass
Brad Keselowski will win the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Making a prediction for the championship Sunday at Phoenix Raceway did not come easy. As Keselowski said Sunday, the field appears even.
The driver many would have considered the favorite didn’t advance, as Kevin Harvick and his season-high nine race-winning stickers will be among the 35 drivers competing Sunday who do not have a shot at the title, after his surprising elimination last Sunday at Martinsville.
Keselowski and his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott, and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin comprise what NASCAR calls its "Championship 4" – and the driver who finishes best among those four Sunday earns the championship.
Hamlin has seven wins, the most of any of the four finalists. He won the semifinal round elimination race at Phoenix a year ago, amid the pressure of a must-win scenario, to qualify for the championship. The only thing missing from Hamlin’s racing resume – one that includes 44 career Cup victories – is a championship.
If destiny or the racing gods had anything to say about this championship, they likely would tap Hamlin, who has seen more than his fair share of heartbreak in the playoffs and the championship over the last 10 years.
But Hamlin has just one win – and just three top-fives and four top-10s – in his last 11 starts. He has had good cars and he has led laps in several races, but he has not come up with the impressive finishes over the last three months.
It appears he has set himself up for another championship disappointment. Don’t forget that his victory last year came with a different aerodynamic package when NASCAR ran a high-downforce setup on the short tracks.
Elliott carries the most momentum into Phoenix, as he heads to the track fresh off the biggest victory of his career. The 24-year-old Elliott has never competed in the championship event with it all on the line, and while he doesn’t seem to react poorly to pressure, it did take him four years of racing in the semifinal round before he could make it to the championship.
He might have all the momentum but the question is whether momentum means more than experience. The other three drivers have so much more experience in these situations at the season finale, and Elliott could find himself in one of those learning moments come Sunday.
Lastly, the two Penske drivers both have championship rings and seek their second.
Logano would seem like the likely choice among the two, considering he won in March at Phoenix and he also has the best average finish in the playoffs of 8.11. But take a look at laps led in that first Phoenix race, and it shows that Elliott led 93 laps and Keselowski led 82 laps. Logano led 60.
While NASCAR hasn’t raced at Phoenix since March, it has raced at a couple of tracks similar to Phoenix in the last four months. At New Hampshire in August, Logano finished fourth and didn’t lead a lap. At Richmond in September, he finished third and led 45 laps.
Those finishes certainly indicate he will race strong at Phoenix this weekend. But before Logano fans get their hopes up, they need to know what Keselowski did in those two races. The 36-year-old Keselowski won New Hampshire and led 184 of the 301 laps. He also won Richmond, leading 192 of the 400 laps.
The car Keselowski will bring this weekend to Phoenix? The same car that won at New Hampshire and Richmond.
Before anyone jumps on the Keselowski train, they should note – Keselowski, the 2012 champion, has only competed in the Championship 4 once, while this marks Logano’s fourth time experiencing the one-race-determines-all scenario that NASCAR implemented in 2014.
Logano won the title in 2018 and has a championship-winning crew chief – former Keselowski crew chief Paul Wolfe – calling his shots, while Keselowski has a crew chief (Jeremy Bullins) who seeks his first Cup title in his first Championship 4 appearance. Keselowski’s pit crew also has the slowest 2020 average four-tire pit stop time among the finalists (Elliott’s ranks the best).
By the way, Logano doesn’t care if anyone calls him a favorite. He noted Sunday night that no one picked him in 2018 and he has the championship trophy on his shelf.
Logano has the fight, Hamlin has the destiny and Elliott has the wave of recent success – but Keselowski has the swagger.
The pick here goes to the swagger with the proven car.
On The Air
Friday
Lucas Oil 150, 8 p.m. ET, FS1
Saturday
Desert Diamond Casino West Valley 200, 5 p.m. ET, NBCSN
Sunday
Cup Championship, 3 p.m. ET, NBC
Stat of Note
Four of the last seven drivers to reach nine wins in a season failed to win the championship, including the last two: Kevin Harvick (2020) and Carl Edwards (2008).
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They Said It
"We'll believe what we want to believe and we'll believe in ourselves first. I'll tell you again: we're the favorites to win this thing." – Joey Logano
